The other side of the Line
by Crazyangel1
Summary: This entire fic was written so that Grissom could say the last line to Sara. Every sentence since the beginning takes Grissom one step closer to that last line. And is NOT ‘I love you’. SECOND CHAPTER.
1. Chapter I

**Rating**: PG-13, just in case.  

**Summary:** This entire fic was written so that Grissom could say the last line to Sara. *Every* sentence since the beginning takes Grissom one step closer to that LAST LINE. And is NOT 'I love you'. G/S    

**Author's Notes:** I felt I had to post some G/S angst before my 'angst muscle' got flabby. 

This fic has been re-written like a hundred times before dumb me realized the poor story was going to wind up in cyber morgue (I actually have a folder named that for stories that aren't going anywhere) with an autopsy report concluding: Death by revision. I have accepted the fact that this fic will _never_ look right to me. 

Constructive criticism will be received with a squeal of happiness and joy.       

Thanks Peggie for the beta. Like the obsessive woman I am, I  changed a few things so whenever you see a mistake of any kind, I am to blame. Only me and my grammatically challenged brain.    

***The other side of The Line by CrazyAngel***

"Cheers," she said to no one, raising the glass.  

Sara took a dainty sip of her champagne and let the tiny bubbles tickle her tongue for a while before swallowing. She closed her eyes when the soothing, warming sensation started spreading through her body.   

She knew she'd be freezing if it weren't for the alcohol. On a balcony ten stories high and wearing nothing but a red dress that left her entire back exposed to the cold night air, Sara needed the extra warmth. Not that she was even aware of the weather anyway, her mind was elsewhere.   

Right about now she'd commit mass murder if that would somehow allowed her to swap her night dress for a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt. She felt too. . .too _something_ in an attire that let just anybody see her back from neck to, well. . . too far down for her taste.   

Sara leaned forward on the edge of the balcony and peered downwards, the glass in her hand. It reminded her one of her first calls as a rookie. Splattered version of a human being who looked like the hotel's doormat. He'd dived to his death from a top floor.

"So Sidle, what do you think?" Ron –her supervisor back then- had asked, testing her. 

Rookie brown eyes still looking upwards, she'd said: "I think it's pretty high." 

Ron had smiled and told her she was going to go somewhere in the crime business. His last rookie had almost hyperventilated when he had asked him 'what do you think?'  

Ron was nothing like Grissom.    

Sara frowned.  From this height, people looked like ants. How could anyone look down and have the courage to take that the leap was beyond her. The faraway ground made her woozy with vertigo.      

She leaned back. 

A voice startled her, causing the glass to slip from her hand and shatter upon impact with the floor beside her heels. 

Spilt champagne glistened along with the twinkling of shredded crystal. 

_Delicate little things champagne glasses_, Sara thought.  

Sara looked up to see who had deprived her of her beloved -and current best friend- Mr. Bubbly Champagne. 

Grissom. In a suit. 

There were times in life when something was so blatantly obvious that everyone was aware of it. Grissom looked strikingly handsome that night. No two ways about it.  

Unless intriguing, quiet, polite, blue-eyed and greyish-haired CSIs weren't your cup of tea.     

If Sara had been tempted to delude herself into thinking he was not, the other women at the party would've made sure to write her a reality check and slap her in the face with it, multiple times.

After they'd seen her exchange a few words with him, teams of women had discreetly approached her. After a pretense at small talk, they went right down to business and asked if 'the guy she'd been talking to' was single, only to interrupt Sara's reply with a lascivious: 'No way _that_ is on the market'. 

But it was.   Just. . . not for sale.     

Grissom in a black suit had all the charm and allure of a sort of quiet version of Frank Sinatra in the old Las Vegas. He made the heads of women from 25 to 60 turn and take notice.  

Sara _hated_ that. No two ways about that either. Despite recognizing how irrational it was, she _hated_ it.     

Oh and Grissom wasn't at all unhappy about being asked the time on numerous occasions and being shamelessly drooled on by woman who would be happy if they could make out with him under the buffet table for 15 minutes. Sara had actually overheard that, word for word. Now every time she couldn't spot Grissom around she would involuntarily glance towards the buffet table and wonder if Grissom was under it, canoodling with some stranger.   

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," he said apologetically.  

A few years back Sara would have been on cloud nine just to be at the same party as he -Atwater's voters-keep-me-in-mind party- but a few years ago were like ten Las Vegas years. Years of up and downs, lefts and rights, swerves and skids and a few screeches, courtesy of Grissom.   

Sara no longer felt the same, she didn't know exactly when had it happened but she'd changed. Las Vegas had changed her in some way she still couldn't fully comprehend. Nick had changed her. Catherine had changed her. Warrick had _certainly_ changed her. Grissom had. . .done something too. 

Sara gave him an absent shrug of her bare shoulders as she stepped over the glittering puddle of champagne and splintered glass into dry land. She swivelled her head back to the twinkling cityscape. 

_Never mind the champagne_, she thought.   

"Nick's been looking for you. He was about to barge into the ladies room to find you," Grissom said, glancing at the neon lit sky of Las Vegas, hoping to find what had Sara so riveted she'd hardly acknowledge his presence.  

Grissom waited to see one of her smiles but all he saw was the tentative start of one and he sensed it had to do with the mention of Nick's idea and not him.  

He took two steps to be a bit closer to her –not too close- when Sara's spoke without even looking at him.  

"What are you doing here?" 

He stopped at the second step as if he'd hit a force field. 

"I'm your search party," he replied with a casual shrug. Sara was still looking at the city. 

Grissom frowned and looked around, slightly uncomfortable.      

Although his eyes were trying their hardest not to wander over the shapely length of her body, his gaze often did. If he could, he'd order Sara not to wear that red dress ever again. It distracted him. 

And not too many things distracted _him._   

The slinky red dress was one with her skin in all the right places and loose as the admiring eyes travelled down the mesmerizing curves. Hair pulled up to give everyone an unobstructed view of a perfect back had been the final touch to make any man wish he _were_ the dress.    

Even Warrick had admitted –with a tone of dawning realization- that Sara looked like a model taken out of a fashion magazine, one of those who looked like the most care-free creatures on Earth, enjoying a cocktail party of the rich and famous and clad in the last fabric-brainchild of some famous Italian designer.  

Sara truly looked all that except for the care-free part, he noted now. There was a hypnotizing aura of mystery that almost made her glow. She had always been a puzzle to him, even in jeans, but that night had been different.       

An hour ago Grissom started suspecting something was wrong when he'd caught Catherine looking at Sara with that sixth-sense glint in her eyes. He knew it was something besides sheer pride. Catherine had gagged Sara and hustled her into a shopping spree after she'd been done with him. The two seemed to have made peace.       

His suspicions were confirmed when Sara disappeared from sight half an hour ago, leaving Nick, Warrick and a dozen other men wondering where the 'chocolate and strawberry dessert' was. 'Chocolate' hair and eyes, 'strawberry' dress. Howard Something-or-other had nicknamed Sara that and it had elicited several laughs and saucy comments from the men around him.  

Grissom hadn't laughed or commented.       

In the back of Grissom's mind, behind a door that said 'Sara Sidle', he was hoping he wouldn't find her with a man. 

Grissom couldn't help it but no matter what he was doing or to whom he was talking, his eyes would always make a quick scan of the ball room, looking for Sara. He'd seen her talking –flirting- with several guys. All young and handsome but he sensed none of them had snatched her attention for more than five minutes. 

As long as you could keep Sara on her toes, you had her undivided attention, Grissom knew that. 

Except for rare occasions, Grissom always had her attention. He knew that too, even if he refused to come to grips with the reason _why_.          

"Tell Nick I'm here, then. You can go now," she said without stirring a muscle. 

He didn't have her attention now. 

If the hair around her face hadn't been swaying to the rhythm of the cold breeze, he would have thought she was a white marble statue. A strikingly beautiful life-like ornament to go along with the white marble balustrade she was leaning her elbows on. 

He saw the tension in her back.  

His eyes followed the faint line of her spine. 

What would her skin be like under his fingertips?    

He frowned and shook his head slightly. 

See? Distracting. _Too_ distracting.  

"Aren't you cold?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly. He felt as though Sara's force field was getting stronger, pushing him away. It seemed to Grissom that their relationship had swerved from good to bad again. 

When Grissom didn't make a move to leave, Sara spoke.   "I'm not cold, all right?" she said, trying to send a clear message of 'go away' without snapping at him.   

He stared at her for a silent and tense moment, searching in his head for the right words that never came. Then he started to walk away, misreading her curt attitude as a desire to be left alone.  

He licked his lips before turning around. Sara hadn't moved an inch, still the unreachable perfect statue, only the red dress fluttering in the breeze.   

"Sara?" 

Grissom's voice was worried. 

She didn't turn around. 

It was driving him crazy. 

He wanted to shake her and make her look at him. 

"Sara?" he said again, it sounded a bit like a plea. 

Please look at me. 

Please smile at me like you always do. 

Please turn around and say 'What?'  

Please. 

Her head snapped around. "What?" she demanded impatiently. 

That hadn't been the tone Grissom had pictured. 

Her gaze was so intimidating that it made Grissom's blue eyes sink to the floor for a second. He recovered quickly though.  

He was glad she was looking at him even if he didn't like what he was seeing.  

"It's too cold, you'll get sick," he said in a weak voice, almost afraid of what her reaction would be. Sometimes Sara could be so intense she'd scare him.  

Her eyes bore into his from a distance, trying to tell him something words could never express as accurately. Grissom stood still and returned her gaze from afar, worried but unable to see a way of breaking the ice that she seemed to have built around her. 

She shook her head, as if giving up on something.  

She turned back to the city's landscape as if he'd never spoken a word, as if he weren't even there. 

Today, Grissom decided suddenly, he was _not_ in the mood for one of Sara's tantrums. No matter how beautiful she looked.

Maybe _because_ of how beautiful she looked. Somehow he felt _threatened_ by Sara that particular night. Tonight she seemed to make him more nervous, more wordless and more attracted to her than on a regular day.

He couldn't let Sara know that because, knowing her curious nature, she would manage to corner him, say something he couldn't possible respond to and leave before he could even stammer a reply and their relationship would get one degree colder.     

He sighed in exasperation and dug his hands in his pants' pockets. When he spoke, he was not pleading anymore. It was a request bordering on an order. He knew Sara's firewall was up and running at full strength, protecting God knew what from him.  

No more Mr. Nice guy, Grissom thought. 

In reality, he didn't want her to get sick and if Bossy-Grissom could make Snappy-Sara get inside, it was fine with him.   

"Sara?" 

Without looking at him she said, "I don't care if I get sick, ok?" Long eyelashes lowered and her eyes came to rest on her hands.   

After a brief shock Grissom strode towards her and this time, he halted inches away from her. He didn't know it, just as she had never realized it, just how close they got when they were concentrated on something.     

"What is going on?" His voice was like a whisper, secretive almost, like the two of them shouldn't be heard speaking with each other. 

She glanced at him, frowning. "Nothing," she replied. 

Most of the times that 'nothing' meant 'a lot'. 

Up until tonight, Sara had been outspoken and forthright about her feelings towards Grissom. If she thought he was being an idiot, she'd inform him that. If she thought he was getting out of control, she'd let him know that, too. Even when others wouldn't dare getting anywhere near him, Sara just got inside the cage with the lion while the rest stared from behind the safety of the bars. 

But tonight. . .tonight it wasn't going to be that easy. She didn't feel like talking to a wall anymore. She was sick and tired of going around in circles.  

. . . He takes a month off work, goes who-knows-where, comes back all happy-go-lucky and with a beard, treats her like she deserves, then starts ignoring her again. . .   

Grissom's head recoiled at Sara's voice. Concern becoming overshadowed by a familiar frustration. Sara could be just as uncommunicative as he could when something was bothering her. She'd give the impression of being as unreachable as eternal bliss.  

Grissom's voice was firm. "You better solve that _nothing_ before coming to work tomorrow night. I'm not working with you like this." 

That got her attention, like a red flag to a bull. She swivelled her head to look at him but looked away a second later. 

"You can always have me work with Nicky, if I bother you so much." She paused. "That seems to be your M.O," Sara delivered the line smoothly and didn't need to see Grissom's face to confirm it had had an impact, Grissom's silence spoke loud and clear.    

If you'd been at the party and happened to wander over to the balcony and find them at that precise moment, you would have _seen _the tension between them. Tension so strong and palpable you could have cut it with a knife.

You would've wanted to watch what was going to happen between those dazzling two people. They seemed to be poised either for a monumental fight or a passionate kiss. 

The truth was, they were somewhere in between.  

"Like I said." Grissom's voice was firm, somewhat more bossy than before because Sara had hit the nail in the head, like she always did.     

"Solve it before tomorrow's shift," he finished.   

Sara sulked like she did when someone told her something she'd rather not hear and returned to her snubbing. 

When Grissom turned around she muttered 'jerk', convinced Grissom was too far away to even hear it.  

She was wrong. 

Grissom's world stopped moving. 

Slowly, a very puzzled, very astounded Gil Grissom twirled around. "_What_?" 

Sara held her unflappable posture, completely ignoring Grissom's question.  

He shook his head, shocked. "Ok. _What_ did I do now? What was so awful that you called me 'jerk' for the first time in ten years?"  

Grissom spoke as if she were a snivelling needy child, always bothering him with her inconsequential complaints and that just fanned the flames of Sara's pent-up anger. She despised that weary 'what now' tone he used. 

Although she wanted to say countless things to him – some of them truly nasty - her lips remained pressed together, looking like they'd never open. 

Grissom tried again. His voice was controlled but Sara's silence was certainly starting to get on his nerves. 

"Tell me," Grissom urged. 

He realized how frustrating it was when you wanted to talk and the other person didn't. He wanted to make her snap out of it. 

Grissom wish was granted. 

She _snapped_. 

Sara turned around.  

"Nothing Grissom! I just felt like calling you a jerk, ok? Satisfied?!" 

She turned back to the city as soon as the last words were uttered. She was fuming. 

Grissom frowned and glanced sideways before asking, "You just. . . felt like it?"  

Sara huffed when she realized Grissom wasn't going to drop it. Her state of mind was oscillating between puzzlement, anger and exhaustion. 

Right then she was leaning towards exhaustion. "It just slipped. You're not a jerk, you have been a perfect text-book gentleman all night. Happy? Now go away. Nick must be worrying." 

Grissom didn't know it but he was poking at a hornet's nest. 

Poking, poking, poking. . .

He rose an skeptic eyebrow. From 'jerk' to 'gentleman' is ten seconds. "No, I'm not happy." 

. . .poking. 

She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. 

He'd gone too far.  

She spun around. "You know why you are a jerk? Because you've been a perfect gentleman!" she blurted. She collected her thoughts immediately and her voice came out controlled, that way he couldn't accuse her later of being 'emotional'.  

"Last couple of weeks you've been treating me as if I had leprosy or something, before that you treated me like a human being with feelings and -get this- before _that_ you would think addressing a word or two to me would hurt you physically. I'm not asking for a three-hour chat, just enough words so I don't feel like I've done something horrible."   

He frowned again, his mouth partially open trying to grasp _some_ of the meaning in her words and failing miserably. 

Sometimes he swore women had entire conversations with him, drew their conclusions, got angry about them and all without him knowing and _only_ to get to this exact point where _they_ knew what they were talking about but he didn't have the foggiest idea. 

He'd thought Sara was different. Well, after all she _is_ a woman, he reminded himself. 

"If you're going to ignore me at least be _consistent_, Grissom. Don't be nice one second and then act as if I had some kind of weird disease you don't want to catch the next. You want to treat me like that? Fine! But don't expect me to jump for joy and cheer like a little girl when you suddenly start treating me the way you used to. I'm not 25 anymore." 

Sara's statement was the last thing Grissom had expected from this night. It had sent his mind reeling and scrambling to remember any instances when he had actually acted as Sara described. 

True, before the surgery he hadn't been himself, but that was reasonable given the decisions he'd had to make. When you were performing full-time denial acrobatics as he had done with his hearing problems, you changed a little. You spent more time with your thoughts –wishing the scary, intermittent deafness would go away- and worrying about yourself, than paying attention to other people. Especially when you hadn't been paying attention to other people to start with.    

Despite this admission, quickly –too quickly- Grissom concluded that he had not treated Sara that way.     

"I do _not_ treat you like that," Grissom said calmly. His mind rattled by what he witnessed immediately after his reply.  

Sara glanced to her left and smiled the sultriest and wryest of smiles. He'd never seen her smile like that. 

"Really?" she asked but turned her face to the cityscape, leaving that simple yet complicated question lingering in the night air.  

As a matter of fact, Sara was still reluctant to sustain a serious conversation with Grissom. Not now and by the way things were looking, not ever.  

Grissom on the other hand was in way over his head. Sara was not making any sense but in Grissom's mind, the only signal she'd sent clearly was that this was not the CSI he'd brought to Las Vegas years ago. 

This was dangerous, it was unknown. Sometime that evening his Sara had been switched for a stranger.  

He had never been comfortable with the unknown. It was better to skirt around the new thing and ignore it until he had no other option but to confront it. That way he bought himself some time to prepare for it. 

Time, it turns out, was the issue between supervisor and supervisee. 

There was one other great concern in Grissom's mind: less than 50 feet from where they were standing were half a dozen press people, Sheriff Atwater, Cavallo and Conrad Ecklie. Normally, he wouldn't give a rat's ass about any of them but Catherine had pointed out that Las Vegas troubled waters needed oil, _not_ another storm. A difficult case a week ago had put Ecklie even more at odds with Grissom, the disagreement had leaked to the press and no one wanted a Lab with a reputation of having contradicting reports. 

At the end Grissom had been right and Ecklie had been. . .royally pissed. Grissom knew that shark was waiting to attack at the faintest trace of blood in the water. 

Grissom didn't know it, but blood was about to appear, in more ways than one. 

"I don't know—." He interrupted himself and he glanced towards the balcony's wide entrance doors, suddenly realizing that his voice was to loud. 

Grissom glanced back and forth between Sara and the entrance to the balcony, wrestling with two choices: tell her they'll discuss it tomorrow or risk a one-on-one with her right then. 

He decided he did not want to try and defuse the ticking bomb Sara represented right now. One wrong move and . . .bang!      

Grissom blew a breath and practically stomped towards Sara while he spoke in a subdued, warning voice.  "I don't know what all that's suppose to mean but I don't think this is the appropriate place to call your supervisor a 'jerk'." 

Grissom didn't know he'd looked so angry as to make Sara do what she did when he closed in on her. She retreated a step as Grissom came within a foot of her as if he were the one with the force field now. In the process of backing up, Sara stepped on the shattered glass. 

She sucked air thought her teeth and instinctively bent her leg to wrap her hand around her ankle and gripped the balustrade with the other. 

Grissom's tension vanished the second he saw pain flash across Sara's features. She looked no different than when she'd burnt her pinkie doing one of his experiments back in San Francisco. Nothing like the stranger to whom he'd been talking to the last 20 minutes.     

"You cut yourself?" he asked, now deeply concern about Sara. She didn't respond, so Grissom told her to step out of the glass and hand him her foot. She walked away from the glass and him. 

"I'm ok, Grissom," she replied, nonchalantly setting her injured foot back on the ground. She winced. Grissom stepped towards her and squatted on the floor, hand outstretched and waiting for her foot. 

In San Francisco she'd given him her hand for him to 'asses the damage' the first time he'd asked, Grissom remembered. She'd even smiled and said 'ok, doc'.   

"I'm really—." 

Grissom blew an impatient breath and quickly peeked down until he saw her toes then did a little bit of fast calculations and deftly reached for her ankle. Sara had to lean her hands on his shoulders not to crumple to the ground. 

"You're about the most stubborn person I've ever met," he muttered under his breath, not meaning for her to hear him. 

Sara snorted a laugh. 

_Yeah_, Sara thought. _Except when you look in the mirror._

"I do not want to hear a sentence from you involving mirrors," he cautioned while he looked for the shard of glass.  

Sara rolled her eyes and looked heavenwards, biting her lower lip and shaking her head at the statement. 

He read her mind now but he couldn't see that she'd been miserable for the past months. _God had wired this man wrong_, Sara thought. 

The scent of his cologne floated upwards and straight into Sara's face. She breathed in and closed her eyes for a second. The smell screamed: 'I'm clean, I'm sexy and wouldn't you like to smell me all the time?'  The scent definitely tickled that part of her brain she was desperately trying to ignore right now. 

Her eyes came to rest on his neck. She bit her lower lip, as if she were staring at a delicious muffin she ached to take a bite out of.    

"Ahh!" She glanced down and attempted to retract her foot from his prying hand. "You're making it worse. Let me go, Grissom. I'd rather die of an infection."  

Grissom ignored her voice and held her ankle firmly. "Shh, be still." 

There was a short silence in which the atmosphere changed from tense to familiarly calm as Grissom tried to take the shard out. He felt Sara's warm hands on his shoulders, using him as support and her gaze above his head. If someone walked in on them right then they would have a lot to explain.  

That brought a surge of panic. 

"There," he said finally, removing the glass and flicking it to the ground.  He glanced up and locked eyes with Sara, who was looking down.  

He was still holding her ankle and one of her hands still rested on his shoulder. For a second they weren't Grissom and Sara, they were two different people who had just met at a party. He was touching her and she was touching him, no embarrassing moments. 

Suddenly there was a flash of fear in Grissom's eyes - he'd realized they were an easy target.  He let go of her ankle and Sara did the same with his shoulder.  There was an all too familiar silence and then Sara shook her head wryly and strode away. 

"Always the same with you, huh?" Sara said as she returned to her earlier spot near the balustrade. 

Grissom's eyes lowered, attempting to conceal something from her he was certain Sara would've read in his eyes. He knew what she was referring to and that was off limits. She knew that. 

_She knows it_, Grissom thought, _but that has never stopped her before_. Adept line-crosser, Sara was. Not this time though, she stayed on her side of the fence and urged him to retreat to his corner.  

"Better go tell Nick I'm here," she said in a quiet voice, ending a discussion that hadn't even started.  

After a small silence Sara's head swivelled around, expecting to see him leaving but her heart skipped a beat when she saw Grissom's face. Then she felt something on her shoulders, she didn't turn around to face him.

"I'm gonna head back inside," his voice said, a few inches from her ear. "But keep this on, it's too cold," he finished. His hands were on her shoulders, pressing slightly, pleading her to accept it. 

He felt Sara's head lolling back, as if she were about to lean on him and ask him to do a bit of stargazing together. Grissom froze, the movement had been so small he thought maybe he had imagined it. He looked down at her shoulders, his hands were still there and he couldn't move them. He didn't want to. 

"Ok," Sara said and she realized they were having one of those _moments_. Like when their gazes locked and stayed locked long enough for them to wonder why did they do that. More weird than 'magical', it left them both –more Sara than Grissom- wondering if the other had refrained from saying something.      

One of his hands crept up her shoulder, over the fabric of his jacket and then, after a moment's hesitation, one of his fingers touched the back of her neck.  

Just a touch first, as if making sure an alarm wasn't going to wail the second he lay a finger on her. 

Sara felt him release a contained breath. At first, she told herself he'd touched her by mistake; but when that one finger was quickly joined by two others, she knew the impossible was happening. Her heart began to pound in her chest, air seemed to be trapped inside her lungs, she was unable to exhale. 

How come she didn't tell him he couldn't do _that_? Wasn't she mad at him? Would the self-reliant no-nonsense Sara Sidle ever stop yielding to Grissom's smiles or sporadic nice comments?      

As though hypnotized by her skin, his fingers glided slowly up her neck.   

He wasn't doing anything _wrong_. . . right? He just wanted to know if her skin felt as soft as it looked. It had been an impulse, his fingers were already touching before he consciously ordered them to. 

He could touch her right? As long as he didn't try to do anything else. . . 

He wasn't doing anything else and he sure as hell wasn't going to try and DO anything else.

Grissom's heart started to thud a bit stronger when Sara's head turned left, leaving her mouth temptingly close to his. 

She was about to break years of tradition and reject him first, she could _not_ take another one of Grissom's impromptu since–I-met-you moments and not at least grill him on the reason behind the comment. Unlike her, Grissom never seemed to think of the consequences of his actions.   

Grissom was capable of doing rash things. He could say things to Sara without even appearing nervous when other men would've probably shut up or squirmed afterwards. That 'beauty' line wasn't something that would roll off the tongue of the average man. 

Once in a while, Grissom did things that surprised even himself.

He leaned forward before she could say a word.  

She didn't stop him. 

Their lips touched once and slowly pulled apart, hovering close to each other for what seemed like an eternity. 

They didn't move.  

Grissom's hand was still on her shoulder, he was still behind her.   

Never had a small innocent kiss meant so much. 

It had taken them nearly ten years to get to this point.   

Grissom leaned again, knowing for sure that he wanted more this time. He wanted _much_ more.    

But he leaned back immediately. 

_God, what am I doing?_ He thought. 

Grissom was the type of person that, being extremely independent, became nothing short of terrified when he realized he wanted something very much. So much that even in Atwater's party he hadn't been able to stop before it got that far. 

Grissom was, quite simply, bordering on a full-fledged panic attack. Where the hell had been his rational mind a few seconds ago? 

Sara turned away from him without saying a word. 

He took a step back and walked a good five feet away from her and leaned on the balustrade, mimicking her earlier position.    

Sara didn't move, she just studied Grissom's every move, trying to gauge his feelings. All she saw was Grissom acting as if he'd committed the worst sin of all times and he was going to be punished greatly for it. 

Worst of all, _she_ was the sin.  

He rubbed his eyes wearily and sighed a long 'what the hell did I do' sigh. 

Sara was in a sort of emotional bittersweet cocktail. She still felt his hands on her face, she still felt his warm breath closer than ever to her mouth and she still felt a bit woozy and she knew it had nothing to do with the champagne. 

But at the same time, her fears had been confirmed.    

She sighed a sigh of her own, very different from Grissom's sigh. It was more of the resigned kind. At this point in their relationship Sara felt entitled to certain past-due explanations. No matter where they were or the herd of press people that lurked nearby. 

She pushed aside her earlier argument. Things had changed now. There were more important questions than 'why do you sometimes treat me like a Kleenex?'     

"Why am I so terrifying to you?" He glanced at her, brows furrowing. "Look at you, standing there, five feet away from me acting as though you think I might attack you or something."  

Her voice revealed a little more confidence. They'd stepped over a line with the kiss, no matter how small. In fact, she still couldn't believe it had happened although his jacket was still draped over her shoulders, shoulders that were still burning where his hands had been, her skin still tingled where his fingers had touched. 

Grissom didn't look at her. Sara knew she was treading on delicate ground by asking the question. So delicate in fact that Sara was sure Grissom wouldn't answer. She started off to rejoin the party, not ready to cope with more rejection and chastising  herself for yielding once again to the bizarre grasp Grissom still had on her. 

After two strides Grissom's voice made her freeze. 

"You're not 'terrifying'," Grissom said without turning around. 

Sara stopped, but didn't turn around. 

There was still a 99.9% possibility that those were going to be Grissom's final words on the matter. He seemed adept at leaving issues hanging in the air; nothing was ever stated clearly, no commitments were made and still, sentences were uttered but never finished. 

That was Grissom, he dropped a few compliments here and there but he made sure he said them while he and Sara were about to process an ice rink or any other crime scene, that way the words would just whoosh by, leaving Sara happily confused.  

Today she was not in the mood for Grissom's mystique because that had been the same flame that had attracted her to him in the first place and had burnt her too many times. 

Once bitten, twice shy. 

Or in Sara's case 100 times bitten, 101 shy. 

Grissom was one of those flames that burnt you once and made you think it'd never do it again.  

His next words surprised her. 

"Your not terrifying . ..you're . . .you're _Sara_," he added with a shrug, still without turning around so Sara couldn't see the small smile that he knew would come to his lips.  

"I know who I am." 

Grissom smiled.  

He looked at her in the eyes and this time she did not look away. Something had changed, Grissom knew it. You don't kiss a woman you've known for ten years, that you've worked with countless nights, without something changing between the two of you. 

Especially when you discovered that you wanted _more_ than a kiss. And especially when you found out you had wanted more for a long time. A long time ago Sara had ceased to be the co-worker, off-limits former student who once had hung on his every word. She'd turned into something else for Grissom.  

"I don't think you do," Grissom replied finally, returning his gaze to the twinkling lights of the city, their designated escape from each other's knowing eyes. 

It surprised Grissom to hear his own voice speaking before he'd had a chance to thoroughly plan what Sara was going to hear. That didn't happen too often.   

"You came this close, you know?" Grissom said to the city, holding his thumb and index finger at a tiny distance in front of Sara's face for her to see. His voice was back to business as usual. Great pretender, Grissom was.  

"Me? Close?" she asked, frowning. "Close to what?" 

He turned then, smiling at her naïveté and dampening the pang of love he felt at the sight of her cute brows furrowing innocently. 

For Grissom, Sara had always had that certain innocent air to her despite being extremely sharp and feisty. She _was_ dangerously innocent sometimes, like when it concerned human nature. Or perhaps he'd become too distrusting, too worldy-wise. Everybody was a suspect for him, no one was off the hook. Not even her.  

"To tainting your career, Sara," he replied, looking away before her beautiful and confused face crashed his resolve of dosing the flames now, before they leaped and grew into an uncontrollable fire that consumed them both. 

He interpreted her silence as a sign that she was processing his words. 

"You would've gotten in trouble too," she replied finally, as Grissom had anticipated. 

"True," he conceded, tilting his head towards hers. "But my career is. . .at the end stage. Yours is just beginning."          

Sara nodded to herself slowly. 

"I see," she said, pondering the difference and reaching a startling conclusion. "What if I told you I don't give a damn about 'my career'?" 

Grissom's quiet laugh seemed to come from deep within his throat, controlled and decorous, it went perfectly with the expensive suit Cath had picked, given Grissom's aversion for fashion. The laugh had sounded like he was amused and sad at the same time. 

Before she knew it, Grissom was serious again.   

"I would tell you that _you_ don't even believe that."  

She looked down shyly and smiled. Yeah, he was right. Her career did matter to her but there were other things she cared about too. 

He continued. "I would tell you that I _do_ care." 

His mind more clear now, not so clouded by temporary insanity. "I would tell you that you have to understand the circumstances and forget about whatever you're thinking right now or were a few minutes ago," he paused and then added, "I should too."    

Sara smiled. She rubbed her hands together as she did sometimes when she was sort of confused, sort of enlightened. Weird state to be in if you had ever experienced it.  

"You know what's funny?" She didn't wait for him to ask. "You've danced to the same tune for years. Forget and move on, two basic steps. I know both of them because you _made_ me learn them. 'Forget and move on' 101. Lesson learned, Professor. Excellent teaching." 

They looked at each other at the same time. Sara smiling sadly, Grissom surprised by her words.  

"I was ready to forget it all even before you asked me to. That's. . .that's sad. Two years ago I wouldn't have been so ready. But now. . ." She shrugged.  

He held her gaze for a second and then looked away. 

To that, Grissom didn't have a reply, comeback or quote of any sort from some  deceased literary master. 

And to think that there was nothing more rewarding, purely fun, interesting and  exiting to him than teaching Sara Sidle new things. It had always been like that. Watching her brown eyes eagerly absorb whatever new information he was saying. She'd always been like a sponge with an auditory memory that was out of this world. 

Most importantly, Grissom thought, he really cherished and loved those times –which were getting more frequent by the week- when _she_ taught him something he didn't know.   

He hadn't wanted to teach her _that_. He didn't want to turn her into. . .him. But he was, she was right, two years ago Sara Sidle would have never been willing to forget a kiss. 

He wanted her to be happy. He also wanted her close to him. . .but not too close. 

Not too close with other men either, he knew now he couldn't take that. Finding out she'd been going out with 'Hank' had been a real eye-opener. Just the possibility of Sara hooking up with _that_ was like nails on a board. The thought of _its_ arm around her was revolting. Truth had hit Grissom hard that day, when Phillip dropped the news. 

He realized that he didn't want to hear Sara talk, mention, allude to or hint about her "friend", where they had been together- if they had been together. And he'd made it clear in his Grissom-way one night by a pool. _When_ had he told her to get a life with that bigamist in the making? _Get a life but _not_ with him. _ 

So, what option did all those requirements leave? 

Not too close. . .not too far away. Not with Hank. . . and probably not with any other man either. 

Get a life. . .but _don't_ be late when I page you.      

Grissom took a deep wavering breath as if he were preparing for a long speech. He looked up and found her eyes on him. "Sara, I'm--."  

"Grissom?" a voice behind them said. 

Sara and Grissom turned around to face the voice's owner.

TBC. . .


	2. Chapter II

**Rating: **PG-13, just in case. 

**Author's Notes:** Finally I post something with more than one chapter! Nothing especially great about this except the fact that I get to thank all the beautiful people who reviewed and read this fic. I really, really appreciate it.   

I say this with the best of intentions: Don't cheat and scroll down to look at the last line or a thunder will come from the sky and strike you in the head! Kidding. 

There's no valet parking in my fic's world and there's a good reason for this: it fits my plot. I'm lame, I know, I know. Also, in my world elevators can be stationary for undetermined periods of time without an alarm screaming.  

I'm sorry for the delay, I tried to post this last weekend but the Gods and ff.net were against me. Huge thanks to Peggie for the fast beta reading. 

I must admit this fic made me beat my head against the wall -and against various other flat surfaces. Angst sucks the life right out of me. Ultimately, it's fun.  

Hope you enjoy! Again, multiple thanks to all the people who read and reviewed!     

**Chapter One: **

"What is going on?" His voice was like a whisper, secretive almost, like the two of them shouldn't be heard speaking with each other. 

"If you're going to ignore me at least be _consistent_, Grissom. Don't be nice one second and then act as if I had some kind of weird disease you don't want to catch the next. You want to treat me like that? Fine! But don't expect me to jump for joy and cheer like a little girl when you suddenly start treating me the way you used to. I'm not 25 anymore." 

"I would tell you that you have to understand the circumstances and forget about whatever you're thinking right now or were a few minutes ago," he paused and then added, "I should too."    

He realized that he didn't want to hear Sara talk, mention, allude to or hint about her "friend", where they had been together- if they had been together. And he'd made it clear in his Grissom-way one night by a pool. _When_ had he told her to get a life with that bigamist in the making? _Get a life but _not_ with him. _ 

So, what option did all those requirements leave? 

Not too close. . .not too far away. Not with Hank. . . and probably not with any other man either. 

Get a life. . .but _don't_ be late when I page you.      

Grissom took a deep wavering breath as if he were preparing for a long speech. He looked up and found her eyes on him. "Sara, I'm--."  

"Grissom?" a voice behind them said. 

Sara and Grissom turned around to face the voice's owner.

**Chapter Two.**

Standing arrogantly at the other end of the balcony, eyebrows raised in mock surprise, was Conrad Ecklie, smirking like the cat who ate the canary.   

Grissom shared a small glance with Sara before his elbows left the balustrade and turned to face Ecklie. Grissom's first thought: he couldn't have seen them k---? 

"You're insatiable, aren't you?" he said, sauntering over to them while ignoring his mousy date who just frowned, unable to grasp the full meaning of Ecklie's question. 

When he came within an arm's length of Grissom, Ecklie halted, shaking his head. "First that Lady 'Leather' and now—." He finished his sentence by tilting his head suggestively in Sara's direction.   

Sara's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, something about his eyes made her uneasy.    

"Conrad?" Grissom interrupted in a tone of greeting, as if this had been the first time he'd seen him at the party. Grissom coolly dug his hands in his pockets as he padded towards Ecklie, his voice polite bordering on intentionally smarmy. "Enjoying yourself?"  

"Not half as much as you, I bet," Ecklie quipped.

Touché. 

Sara's eyes processed every second of the encounter but she didn't utter a word, feeling this was some kind of old resentment going back to the first day Grissom and Ecklie had met. She knew she should stay far away from this war.

Leaning slightly over Grissom, so their heads almost met, Ecklie admonished. "At Atwater's party. God, Grissom, you're more stupid than I thought." 

Tilting his body from the hip up, so he could see Sara, he gave her an appreciative once-over -for the fourth time that night- and then glanced back at Grissom. "Although I can understand why."   

"Eating dessert, Grissom?" he goaded, prodding at the edge of Grissom's limits. Ecklie knew which buttons to press and when. He never missed an opening.   

The fake smile that had been artificially plastered on Grissom face vanished as he stepped between Sara and Ecklie, blocking off his view of Sara and with that, the leer from Ecklie's face. 

Ecklie's back straightened, and as he took a slow step backwards, hands coming out of his pockets, palms facing Grissom in a submissive gesture. 

Grissom saw nothing remotely submissive in his eyes.  Quite the contrary, Ecklie's black gaze resembled that of a shark: predatory, as though circling a bleeding prey.     

Grissom jerked a thumb at Ecklie. "How many glasses of champagne has he had?" Grissom asked to Ecklie's date with one of those charming smiles of his that could (and usually did) completely fool anyone into thinking Grissom was the most outgoing and gregarious man in the world.   

The woman chuckled and smiled flirtatiously at him. She was about to reply when Ecklie glared her into silence. She caught the drift –stay out of it- and lowered her eyes.       

As tempers began to fray, Ecklie's cool front crumpled, losing the smile and gaining a scowl. "You may _like_ to think I'm an idiot, Grissom, but the truth is, I'm not," he said, pointing a finger at Grissom's chest. 

Grissom glanced at the finger with contempt and looked up at Ecklie again. Ecklie dropped the finger but not the attack. 

Ecklie's eyes hardened, the taunting show was over. His next words were taut with anger and resentment. To him, Gil Grissom was nothing more than a spoiled prima-donna who had recently stuck his nose where it didn't belong again and with unbearable consequences to Ecklie: public knowledge of his mistakes.         

He fixed his gaze on Grissom. "Next time Sheriff Atwater asks for your opinion on one of my cases, you may want to keep your thoughts to yourself or there'll be one more nasty rumour circulating the Lab's grapevine." He glanced in Sara's direction.   

Grissom frowned.  

With considerable pleasure, Ecklie elucidated further. "You know how people like to talk, if certain sex-related details leaked to the press or happened find their way to Atwater's or Cavallo's ears. . .."

Grissom glare was so intense it suggested he was attempting to summon all his brain power in order to make Ecklie spontaneously combust. Grissom's right thumb started to rub itself against the tip of his fingers, over and over, as if the thumb had an obnoxiously persistent itch.    

Ecklie shrugged and went on, unfazed and encouraged by Grissom's silence. "Who knows? A bunch of CSI that have managed to compromise evidence in a case involving a superstar, blow up the lab thus destroying evidence and cases, lead angry fathers to _innocent_ people in protective custody. . . the list goes on, Gil. Let's add this, shall we? Love affairs between supervisors and employees. The all-time sizzling favorite combo of the press and masses. Now, _that_ might just be the last straw. . .." 

Ecklie held his gaze, knowing he'd touched a nerve, found a new Achilles' heel. He saw Grissom's jaw shift, teeth certainly grinding together. 

Behind Ecklie, Sara saw his date eyeing them with great interest, almost as if she were memorizing their faces for later description to ten of her equally tongue-loose friends.  

Hearing that flagrant attempt at a semi-extortion, Sara couldn't stay on the sidelines any longer.   

"That's not true and you know it," Sara said, folding her arms over her chest, suddenly very cold. It was then that she realized she was still wearing Grissom's jacket. 

She winced inwardly. That couldn't look too well.  

Ecklie had always had a knack for smelling a rat, even when the rodent was very well hidden and marinated in perfume. 

Grissom had been correct, Ecklie had not seen them kissing, he'd just seen them very cozy. He'd played the odds, threw the bait and suggested what he hadn't seen. The oldest trick in the book.  

Now he knew something _had_ happened before he'd arrived. What exactly he didn't know, but they didn't know that and as long as they acted as if they had something to hide, Ecklie would follow their lead.  

Ecklie turned to her. 

"It's not the truth what matters, it's what _looks_ like the truth," Ecklie replied, patronizing in his every word, cynical to his very core.   

As an afterthought he added, "And to be honest, people at the Lab wouldn't have to do much of a stretch of the imagination. If any of you bothered to listen to a bit of water-cooler talk, you'd know it. People will buy it in a heartbeat," he explained, snapping his finger at the word 'heartbeat'.      

Ecklie lifted his arm for her date to loop hers around it and looked at Grissom. "Stay _out_ of my cases," he repeated and started off towards the ballroom.       

After getting a considerable distance away from them and before disappearing completely behind the lush plants that flanked the balcony's entrance, Ecklie delivered his last punch, this time aimed directly at Sara. 

"Sidle," he said to get her attention. Sara looked at him. "There are other ways to get a promotion, you know." 

Grissom sucked in a furious breath and stalked after him but Sara caught his arm before his third step. 

He swivelled his head to look at her.  

"You'll ruin your suit," she said with startling equanimity. "Which I know cost what Catherine forced you to pay. Much like this dress," she said with a smile, glancing down at herself.   

With another shift on his jaw and a murderous look in Ecklie's direction, Grissom's temper simmered just below boiling point, clearing his head from the steam just enough for him to grasp the meaning of what just happened. 

His gaze focused on her hand, clasped just above his elbow. Warm, delicate, long fingers. He couldn't help but to stare at it. People didn't usually touch him. He felt. . .it felt. . .

He looked up when her hand weakened its hold of his arm and slipped away as though chased away by his staring. 

_Better that way_, Grissom thought bitterly. __

  

Grissom took a deep breath and brought up that trademark indifferent veneer of his. Sara saw it coming and braced herself. Instantly, she knew where Grissom was going and she admitted it wouldn't be an unlikely end to an accidental kiss. 

He didn't speak immediately and a thick silence swiftly imposed itself between them, a huge invisible wall that prevented words from reaching to the other side.   

Blue eyes dropped to the impeccably polished floor. Unexplainable sadness wreathed its way around Grissom's heart, replacing the anger that'd been there moments ago. He stood unmoving, staring at his shoes like a repentant child who'd been scolded by his mother for playing with matches.  

Sara studied him. Eyelashes swept over his eyes, lips pressed together in a small pensive pout. It was during moments like these that Sara felt she still had a lot to learn about Grissom the man, not the friend or the co-worker.       

Grissom decided his course of action. His posture changed, his back straightened, his eyes looked up from the ground with steady, forlorn gaze, a glint of gloominess in his eyes.  

"What happened here can't happen again," he said matter-of-factly. A shimmer of hope he didn't even know existed died with Ecklie's visit to the Hotel's balcony. "It was my fault and I'm sorry." 

She shrugged off his jacket and handed it to him, outstretching her fingers towards him. "It looks suspicious" was all she said. 

Grissom stepped forward and took it, careful not to graze her fingers. Sara noted this but didn't let herself be stung by it, one step forward always precluded four steps backwards with Grissom. She should be surprised.    

She crossed her bare arms over her mid-section as Grissom slid his jacket back on in one smooth motion. 

Sara ignored his apology. 

"Ecklie's bluffing," Sara replied, giving the night a half-shrug. It wasn't a rebuttal just a statement of fact. She wasn't trying to make him change his mind.   

"No, he's not." She turned to him and saw how serious he was. "And even if he were, I'm not calling it," he explained, blue eyes staring straight at hers. He shook his head and took a few restless steps away, and then spun around to face her again. Now he looked flustered.  

Sara had never seen Grissom switch from one emotion to the other in so short a time. It baffled her.  

"That's what I meant when I said you don't know who you are," he kept his voice tightly controlled.  

She followed Grissom's finger. He was pointing to the spot where Ecklie had disappeared. Sara frowned. 

Grissom rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb. "You heard him, scumbag that he is," –he shrugged his shoulders- "he's right!"  

Sara opened her mouth to say something but Grissom lifted a finger, silencing her. "He virtually turned you into a whor--," he couldn't even say it. He sighed. "And...and we haven't even..._That_ is what would happen if..." 

He was so angry he couldn't even articulate half the things he wanted to say.

Grissom levelled his voice and continued. "Sara, we're supposed to **_work_** together, not. . .not '_this'_. . ."

 _. . .this kissing_, he thought. _This urge to do _more_ than kissing. . . _  

He wasn't telling her half of the things that scared him besides her name. 

He didn't tell her that it scared him to death knowing that given the smallest  chance, he was absolutely sure Sara would come to know him inside-out and exactly in the way he didn't want anyone to know him. Exactly in the way that left him ...exposed ...vulnerable. 

Vulnerability was an anathema for Grissom. If he'd felt a little piece of him chip away when he found out Sara had been dating Hank, he didn't want to even imagine what would happen if they were together and something similar happened. 

Images of Dr. Lurie and Debbie surfaced, uninvited. It certainly drove Lurie mad. Debbie, here one day, making him feel happy again; and, gone with a younger man the next.   

Funny, intelligent, beautiful Sara, with him one day, gone the next, leaving a huge void in his life he'd never be able to fill.   

He stopped himself, the mere prospect of it made his chest tighten with fear.    

"It's- it's too complicated," he said instead. That revealed less about him, or so he thought.     

Sara regarded him with a laser-like stare that made Grissom feel she was reading his thoughts. He didn't squirm on the outside, his façade had been practiced for too long for his nervousness to seep through it. 

He didn't fidget but his eyes did waver and that was enough for Sara.  

"I never hear you say that when you're working a case," she said. "You know, if you put half the energy you dedicate to every case to solve 'this'. . . " Her finger pointed to him and her. " . . .you would never say 'it's too complicated'." 

Grissom stared at her, his head tilted half a degree to the left, indicative of his surprise. Her words had lowered his guard for a moment and unwillingly, one corner of his lips curled up into a sad you-got-me-there smile.     

Why was it that despite all his efforts  she just kept digging and digging? It came so natural to her, she countered each and every one of his arguments effortlessly.    

Grissom shook his head, dispersing thoughts that told him he shouldn't push her away, that he should take the leap into that emotional darkness.    

"That's different," he replied with not much conviction. He sauntered towards the balustrade and rested his elbows there, contemplating the city, the oldest and longest love affair of his life.      

She looked at his back for a moment, understanding the message. She sighed, glanced skywards for a second and then looked back at him. Somewhere in that short period of time her eyes had turned a sad, resigned black.  

"Yeah, it is different, Griss. One is about other people's lives and the other is about yours. _Big_ difference."      ****

Sara had to muster up all the energy and courage she had just to keep her voice from cracking. This night had shattered something inside her, she needed time to pick up the pieces and glue them back together.  

She started towards the ballroom, she wanted to leave. 

After taking a couple of steps, a thought popped into her head that made her heels stop. She turned around and waited to see if he would turn around to face her but he didn't.  

"I give up," she said to his back, shrugging her shoulders with disenchantment, arms lifted at either side of her hips, palms facing him. "I give up."    

She noticed how his head bowed slightly, almost as if he'd been expecting a similar statement.

Grissom didn't turn around, he remained as still as she'd been almost an eternity ago. 

After he no longer sensed her presence, he looked around.     

***************

"Wait!" Grissom said, a bit breathless from the sprint. Inside the elevator Sara didn't lift a finger to stop the gliding doors. Just when they were an inch from closing, Grissom slid his fingers inside the door and pushed them open again. 

"I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about," Sara said flintily.

Her tone made Grissom wince inwardly. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for words.   

Grissom held the doors open but didn't go in. "I'm not worried about that." 

Grissom hesitated, not knowing what to say and feeling uncomfortable talking to her under those circumstances. "Could you step out? We can't talk like this." 

Sara arched a perfect eyebrow. "I think you were pretty clear back there," she said. 

Out of the thousand thoughts he had swarming inside his head what came out was: "I want to explain."

"You don't have to 'explain' anything." 

She walked up to him and placing her hand over his, removed them from the elevators doors. 

"I'm leaving," she informed and then stepped back inside the elevator. Grissom frowned and his eyes darted sideways, terror in them.    

The doors started to slide.  

"You're leaving? Las Vegas?" came his terrified voice from behind the moving doors. 

Sara was dumbfounded. 

_I cannot believe this_, Sara thought, jaw dropping slightly.  

She pushed a button and the doors slid open again. She looked into Grissom's eyes and saw that he was in some kind of shock and she thought she saw fear too. 

She let him stew in his own juice for a moment, strangely enjoying seeing him out of that emotional straightjacket he'd forced on himself. Though she would not reveal it to him now, the prospect of leaving Las Vegas had been hovering in her mind for a while. A _long_ while. For reasons she didn't want to face just yet, she was tied to Sin city. Tied to a part of her life she didn't want to leave, tied to a part of her life that was slowly gnawing at her. 

Gnawing at the rope that tied her too; one day someone or something would snap the rope in two and then she might start to consider leaving. But certainly not now –not after what happened- when it would make her look like an immature teenager running away when things didn't go as she planned.     

"The _building_, Grissom," she replied and watched his whole body relax. Sara frowned and shook her head, even more confused and puzzled.   

She raised a hand to her temple, rubbed it for a second, collecting her thoughts. "For the life of me I will never, _never,_ understand why you push me away when I'm close but the minute you think I might leave you, you act like you don't want me too far away. Which is it, Grissom?" 

He was unable to face her inquisitive stare head-on. His gaze sunk to the floor and his hands slid inside his pockets. 

Sara didn't know whether to interpret that as shame or plain fear of the truth.  

"See you tomorrow," she said dryly.     

She leaned against one of the elevator's polished stainless-steel walls and watched Grissom's face slowly disappear behind the right sliding door. She sighed and closed her eyes, she was emotionally drained. She could not take more tonight. She needed a hot bath, bed and sleep. She was utterly exhausted, ready to move to a deserted island and spend the rest of her days alone.   

Before the pair of sliding doors touched, Grissom mustered the courage, stuck his hand in the narrowing slit and pushed the doors open. He slid into the elevator, accidentally ending up standing too close to her. He took a step back and leaned on the wall opposite her. 

"Can we talk?" 

She pushed the "Lobby" button and the elevator glided down. "No." 

Grissom tilted his head pleadingly and Sara arched an eyebrow, not knowing if he did it on purpose or if he didn't know his face was irresistible. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  

"Talk. You have" –she glanced at the panel above the doors, numbers dropping fast- ". . .twenty seconds." 

Grissom's eyes widened a bit, words jumbling inside his head. 

"Eighteen, Grissom. Better summarize."  Sara was making him suffer. 

"Sara?" he pleaded. 

She sighed, rolled her eyes. Grudgingly, she looked to her left and flicked a switch, halting the downward movement. 

She wasn't going to make it easy for him.         

"What happened up there can't happen again," he said again, looking into her eyes at the end, searching for a reaction or most likely, the question 'why'. Sara liked the word 'why'. 

"If Ecklie does what he said, I don't even want to think what could happened to you." 

"To us," she corrected. 

"No, no." He shook his head and raised his index finger. "There's no 'us' to me," he paused. "There's just a 'you' and a 'me'. Separate." Grissom didn't know how harsh that had sounded, he was just speaking his mind.     

Sara laughed quietly then took a deep breath and released it in a 'God'.  

"You know," she started, eyes on the elevator's floor. "If you don't want anything to do with me it would be easier just to say it."  She stressed the words 'say it' by rising her eyebrows invitingly. 

She continued after watching Grissom lower his head. "Or maybe you could start acting like you don't want something from me. My life would get a lot simpler," she said confidently, when inside it took her entire strength to utter the sentence.  

Grissom smiled at her and felt it again, that magnetic attraction towards her, that painful tug at his heartstrings. For a second he thought he wouldn't be able to fight it, as the memory of their earlier kiss taunted him, giving him a taste of what he couldn't have again, showing him flashes of what might have happened if he hadn't said 'no'. The battle had been tight, he could have just as easily have leaned forward again.   

He would've kissed her again and he would made her turn around to face him. The kiss would've been deeper and . . . Ecklie wouldn't have had to invent the rumour. 

He rested his back flat against the cold steel of the elevator's wall and calmly dug his hands in his pockets. He took a deep breath and swore she had left her perfume on his jacket as a kind of scented torture. He looked down, he couldn't speak if he met her eyes.      

His voice was calm, almost lulling. 

"If I could show you-" He paused and swallowed slowly, hard- "the amount of will power that I need just to keep myself here, on this wall and away from you, you wouldn't have ever asked the question."     

Sara blinked. She'd never dreamed of hearing Grissom saying things like that but somehow, it had sounded like him. Unexpected, intense and fundamentally, not said while looking at her. His eyes had been on the floor he entire time. 

A shy little boy in so many ways; a strong amazing man in so many others. The duality had been a slow-acting poison in her bloodstream since the day she'd met him.         

"If you showed me anything we wouldn't be here," she countered, giving him a pointed look.  

Grissom nodded his head and smiled almost to himself. 

"A few months ago I took a leave of absence, remember?" She nodded hesitantly, not knowing the sudden relevance of that. "You know what I did those weeks?" he asked.  

Sara shook her head hesitantly. You could say she was nervous of what his answer would be.  

"Recovering from surgery." Her eyes grew wide so Grissom added more information. "Hearing problem," he said, pointing at one ear. "Nothing terminal. I'm ok now." 

She asked about the specifics of the problem. He told her. She nodded to all in silence, processing his words with care, connecting the scattered dots Grissom had left over the years and specifically, over the last year-and-a-half. 

"That's why you were acting so weird before you left?" she said finally, frowning. 

Grissom shrugged and avoided her enquiring gaze. Which meant his answer was 'yes' but he didn't want to admit it. Everything was subtext and body language with him. 

Sara crunched the new data. While it shone some light over the man's actions there was still one small huge detail that didn't add up. ****

"Why did I get the worst of it?" The tone of her voice matched the sadness of her eyes. She wasn't reproaching him, she was curious.     __

He frowned. "_Yes_ Grissom, I got the worst of it. Everybody knows it. You didn't ignore Catherine, you didn't ignore Nick or Warrick or Greg. Everybody knows it, except you." 

This was quickly veering towards to that off-limits territory. She kept venturing there, poking and probing and didn't even leave him time to think things through. He fidgeted and lowered his eyes. 

"I don't know," he offered, with a small raise of his shoulders. 

Oh, he _knew_.  

"You don't know. . .," she repeated, resting her head on the metallic walls of the elevator. Her eyes glanced heavenwards and sighed. "You don't know why what happened up there happened either? You don't know why you did what you did?"  

Their gazes collided and clung to each other. Sara daring him to answer and Grissom trying to end the discussion the same way he always did: staring and not saying anything because he couldn't think of what to say.   

"Do you?" Was what came out of his mouth. Instantly, he recognized his mistake.

"I do," Sara replied confidently. "I'm on a self-destructive path, what's your excuse?"  

"You always have an answer," he hedged, breaking the eye contact. 

"That's not an excuse, Grissom," she pointed out, glancing towards the stainless steel panel and to the 'Stop' switch. She stared at it, mind seesawing between two choices.          

She finally found her voice and to her surprise, she didn't sound angry anymore, it was as calm as his. "If you feel like you said then why don't you—?" 

"Because we can't," his voice raised a little but when he spoke again his voice was calm. "Because of what Ecklie said to you tonight, remember?" He massaged his right temple with one hand before continuing, he was clearly getting to the end of his emotional rope. "Sara. . .try to understand—." 

Sara could swerve into different moods as fast as any Ferrari could go from 0 to 100 m/p/h. 

"No, I don't want to! You don't make any sense!" She folded her arms over her chest like stubborn child refusing to do her chores. "You're using that meddlesome moron as an excuse. And a poor one at that."   

Grissom bowed his head to hide an amused smile. Sara could regress into childhood sometimes. 

"Ok," Grissom conceded. It was best not to sail against the wind.  

She tilted her head, not certain she'd heard correctly. "Ok? Ok?? What did you do? Take a Valium when I wasn't looking? How can you be so calm! What is---"

Maybe you can't sail in a Hurricane.   

He held up his hands and interrupted her. "Sara, no matter what you do or say, you won't make me change my mind. I still think –and will think- that it's better for both of us if I keep being Grissom to you. Just Grissom." 

She smiled and slowly her smile changed into a scowl. Grissom shrank a bit under her shrewd eyes.  

"You'd love that wouldn't you, _Grissom_? To remain a mystery?" She'd blurted the words out, she didn't even knew she was going to say that but after the words were in the air, it dawned on her how fitting they were. 

Grissom was speechless. She might say he confused her but more times than not, Sara managed to make her words hit right on target, like a secret-seeking missile. 

This time she'd hit too close for comfort and Grissom had no way to escape from her next question. 

He felt cornered.    

He brushed past her without saying a word or so much as looking in her direction. 

He flipped the 'Stop' switch into 'off' with one swat of his hand.  A chime and a small jolt indicated the argument had been swiftly terminated. She'd careened into a dead end by getting so close to the truth of what made Grissom act like Grissom.  

Leaning on her side of the elevator, she regarded Grissom with a glare. Now she was angry, he'd done it again. _She_ had stopped the elevator because _he_ had ask her and now, _he_ was the one taking control, ending things. Always in control.   

After a silence filled with unspoken words, they heard a chime and the metallic doors whirred open. 

"I'll walk you to your car," Grissom said. 

Sara glared at him, suddenly fed up with 'this'. "I'll walk myself," she said before stalking toward the double glass and brass doors.       

The doorman snapped to attention at the sound of heels moving towards him.  Straight-backed and gracefully, he swung open the door for Sara.  

Sara mumbled a 'thank you' without looking at him and braced herself against the cold of the night that had suddenly taken over.

* * *

"It's late, it's a big parking lot, Sara, please," Grissom tried to reason but Sara's purposeful strides took her further away from him. He scanned the parking lot. The twinkling lights of the Strip didn't shine this far so the lot was a rectangular patch of darkness dotted by small circles of dim light coming from half-a-dozen scattered streetlights. 

And Sara was heading straight into a dark zone, mugging-land.       

"Would you wait a damn second?!" was what came out instead. 

Sara's next unexpected words burned straight though him, and through that wall she'd always wanted to take apart, even if it was brick by brick, even if it was one brick a year.    

She swirled around. He stopped walking. 

"You know what? I was right. Warrick was right," she blurted. 

"About what?!" he said, his voice strained.    

"You're a robot! Convincing disguise of a human being though! You  sure fooled me," she replied, eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and, creeping slowly without her noticing, disappointment. 

She twirled on her right heel, not expecting a response from him and not wanting any either. Grissom didn't follow her, he was trying to collect his thoughts, bring some semblance of order into his head before continuing what he'd started by the simple act of telling Nick he'd look for Sara.  

He carried on, feeling like he'd regained his composure, not knowing a brick in his wall had been chipped, all it needed was one more blow and it would smash into pieces.

She reached her car seconds before him. Her hand disappeared into one of her jacket pockets, rummaging for the car keys, ignoring Grissom's presence behind her.   

"I'm not a robot," he said. Her hand was wrapped around the keys, she loosened her grasp and turned around.  

"Oh really? Then prove it," she challenged. Grissom didn't know how to respond to that. "Prove it God dammit! Do something a human being would do! I'm sick of this tug-of-war! You resist, I push, you blow me off, I retreat, you come forward! Make up your mind!"     

Few times in his life had people pushed the right button that sent him into a gut-instinct, long-repressed response. This time became one of those few.  

Grissom stared at her for a second, blue eyes as black as the night sky. He paced for another second, putting some distance between them and then spun around and unleashed a tiny part of himself. 

"What do you want me to do, Sara?! I can't change who I am! I'm tired of people saying I can't feel anything! Warrick. _You. _I'm not like you! I'm not like Warrick either! What the hell is going on? You've known me for years what's so different now? Huh?! Everything I do is a mistake!"     

Sara frowned at his tone of voice and stood besides her car driver's door, sensing but not certain that Gil Grissom had just shed one layer of his social mask. He looked like a burdened man, not even aware of the multiple crosses he was bearing or the possibility of asking people for help to share a bit of the weight.   

Damn him, she thought, now she couldn't be angry at him. She sighed and spoke calmly, setting the volume of the conversation down again, keeping them both on the rational side of the fence. 

"Sure you make mistakes-who says _I _don't? But I'm not talking about Warrick, I'm not talking about Catherine or Nick or Greg and the things they might or might not tell you. We're talking about _you_ and _me_."   

Grissom blinked and looked up at her. Grissom felt as though the entire planet's population had disappeared. Ecklie, Cavallo, Nick, Warrick, Catherine. . .the whole of Las Vegas population was gone except the two of them, standing in a dark parking lot, having the confrontation he'd dreaded for years.   

Sara seemed to be on a roll, a latch that had held all her thoughts concerning Grissom had snapped loose. Say it now, or say it never. She went on, "And you know what makes relationships more demanding? _Years_, Grissom. Years make people more demanding," she said as if explaining him a foreign concept. "Time changes people and relationships. But you, you don't change." 

He frowned and though Sara couldn't see it, his eyes could not longer hold her gaze for too long, he was retreating again, like a man who'd been in the shadows for too long and when light came, his first response was to shield his eyes. Stop the aggression, hide back in the cave. 

"No, that's a lie," she corrected herself immediately. "You do change. You have your good days and maybe let someone close and a week -or a day- later when that person thinks they'd made progress with you---" 

"What?" He interrupted, scratching his beard nervously, looking for a way out, not ready to face all the facts in one night.    

Sara paused, hastily tucking a loose strand of hair behind her left ear. "_She_ hits a wall where yesterday had been a door. It's been that way for years. That's. . .that's disconcerting. That _hurts_, Griss. It hurts and you don't seem to know or care that it hurts." 

Like any other human being when they're stressed, confused and emotionally hypersensitive, he said something horrible. 

"If you've known this for years then why the did you stay?"  

Slap. 

She felt as if he'd just slapped her. 

Sara's chin dropped a degree.  

He'd just made it clear she had wasted four years of her life.  

She looked at him as a solitary tear slid down her cheek. Anger and sadness intertwined so intricately Sara didn't know exactly how she felt. She took a deep wavering breath, choking back a hundred tears he would never see and looked with two gleaming brown eyes.  

"I don't know why I stayed," she said. She gave him a wan sad smile and as another tear slid down her cheek. "See? I don't always have an answer." 

He felt something crack inside him. A lump had lodged in his throat, guilt.   

"I. . .I didn't mean that," he said hesitantly, outstretching his hand towards her face. What had he done? "I'm sorry."    

Sara retreated a step, lifting a hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Please don't. Don't look at me like that, like you care because it's clear that you don't." 

She blinked and another tear glided down her cheek, Grissom stared at it as if it were the last drop of water on the Earth. "I'm. . .I. . .," he stammered. 

He couldn't move, frozen from the inside out.          

Sara shook her head. "Silence. I know what that means: 'Sara stop embarrassing yourself and leave me alone'. Fine, _Grissom_. Fine." She did a half-turn when his hand gently clasped her upper arm.       

She didn't turn around. 

"I'm. . .I'm sorry," he said, this time that sorry covered more ground than the one before and Sara felt it in his voice. I'm sorry I made it confusing, I'm sorry I hurt you, I'm sorry I caused those tears, I'm sorry I never seem to say the right thing. . . 

Sara turned around and found him inches away from her. He let her arm free and waited for her response.

When Sara didn't say anything he spoke again, "If sometimes I don't say anything to you it's not because I don't _want_ to, it's because you always make me forget what I want to say." He sighed. "You said you over-talked around me. . .well" –he shrugged his shoulders and looked sideways shyly- "I. . .under-talk."   

That earned him a small smile from her. Grissom realized she might not know the power she had over him; power he didn't want to admit was stronger now that it had ever been before. He had to make her leave now.   

He sighed and carefully leaned towards her as one of his hands slid inside her jacket's pocket, taking her car keys out. The gesture was incredibly intimate, as if they were old lovers instead of old friends. She didn't try to stop him. 

The keys jingled in his right hand as he took them out. They both looked up at the same time, sensing this moment was a strange form of 'goodbye'. They had argued all that there was to argue and the tug-of-war Sara mentioned was still going on.    

Despite it all, she didn't want to let go. Like a bad-habit, Grissom was so entrenched inside her it was difficult to stop, to forget him.    

Hesitantly, his hand reached up to her face, stopping half-an-inch short of her cheek and then continuing. He ran his index finger over her cheek, following the path of a dry tear. For the first and last time he was touching her with his hands and not with his eyes.  

His eyes followed his finger on her skin. It seemed so easy. The tear had slid close to her lips---He withdrew his hand. "You better leave now," he whispered, holding the keys between them.  

Sara eyes went from his eyes, to the keys and then back to those blue eyes she sometimes knew and sometimes didn't recognize. 

He licked his lips nervously, reading the negative in her eyes he sidestepped her and pushed the keys into the lock, Grissom pulled the door open and slid inside. 

Sara closed her eyes at the sound of the engine revving. 

_One last try, _she thought.       

As he emerged from the car, Sara turned around and stood between the open door and him, pinning him against the passenger door.  

Grissom felt something inside him curl up and hide in fear. At the same time, something else wanted to take the leap. His breath got caught inside his lungs, his pulse spiked. He pressed himself against the cold metal of the Yukon as if she could burn him with her touch.   

He looked away from her. "Sara."

He'd never said her name like that. It sounded on edge, like saying 'don't push me more or I'll . . . 

She saw it, for the first time, she _saw_ it. No veneers, that was him. "What?" she asked, leaning slightly closer to his mouth.  

He swallowed hard and though he knew he shouldn't, he looked into her eyes. He had ten seconds to put some distance between them or his self-control would be scorched to oblivion.  

For the first time in years he knew he was going to say _exactly_ what he thought. 

"If I have you too close, I don't know what I would do." 

THE END


End file.
